Sunday, August 29, 2010

Blogs Entries, Responses, & Vincent Price

My last two blog entries got a few interesting responses, and I felt like making a few comments here before writing the last, and purely humorous, section.

Straw Wise (Wo/)Men

One of the people reading my last EI.Net blog entry sent me an email due to wanting to avoid my ire, which kind've made me rethink some of the ways that I've been wording things. So I think that I'm going to have to work on being nicer, and more inclusive. Granted, I'll probably never manage to phrase things as nicely as Gordon does, but perhaps toning down my verbal vitriol would help more than a bit.

In any event, she wanted to know just how many Hispanic/Latina females I knew, as she was a bit concerned that I might be over-stating things or creating straw wise-women. She was extremely surprised when I responded, “does family count?”

When I was five, my mother married a slender, awkward man who'd come to America for school from Peru. For me, it meant that I got to hear about a magical far-away land where the Inca Empire had stretched throughout the Andes mountains, and pushed even into the jungles. (At the age of five, my “imaginary friend” started causing too much chaos and so, reputedly, I exiled his ass to Peru.) For my mother, it meant working two jobs to try and help put him through school.

I'm sad about the way I responded to things when I was a kid and a teenager, sometimes. I had a chance to become fully fluent in Spanish, as my sister is. But my little power struggles with my stepfather, and my rejection of many of his lesser qualities lead me, at the time, to miss out on the more glorious aspects of being raised in a bi-cultural home. Mind you, he abandoned his Catholicism on this shore (it turns out, going to a Catholic school in Peru isn't always great; those Nuns can be mean), and discovered that even Christians could be bigots here, leading him to live with the mindset of an Atheist. Many of our fights over the years were over whether or not I was doing things the right way, and so you can probably see even where a huge degree of my rejection of certain mental tendencies leads.

I probably have him to thank for many of both my better qualities, and my less impressive ones. I've been trying to figure out what to do about him recently, in all honesty, which leads me to reflect on his culture and what I took and what I rejected. What always seemed odd to me was that my stepfather, who clearly loved his country, family, and culture very much stilled tried his best to be an “All American Dad,” and I sometimes wonder if that was the biggest issue between us. No, that's not it. I don't know. I'm going to drop this subject in public. Anyway...

I haven't even mentioned V.V.F. or her wonderful Puerto Rican family yet... So, if you wanted something like an a solid figure that I made my estimate from: I know somewhere around 90 Latina/ Hispanic women to varying degrees. If not more. I don't even know if I get to count casual acquaintances. I'm also quite odd, and people have this very strange tendency to tell me things. So I hear all kinds of weird shit that I never expect to... It must be a hypnotically induced kind've thing. Like the sight of my hair convinces people that I'm “Good People” and that I need to know every detail of their lives...

One last thing: people dislike the idea that Llamas are not, well, nice animals. Listen to me: Llamas hate your existence, and they spit and kick just like donkeys and camels. Furthermore, the spit is a tight ball about the size of a tennis ball, and it smells like vomit. This is their favorite method for punishing the unwary that come toward them as if they're mystically enlightened and loving creatures. Unless you want a sizable wad of spit hitting your face at several miles per hour, I suggest that you never go and try to pet a Llama.

It'll fuck your shit up, man.

Glenn Beck, and Politics.

My last post wasn't intended to be political. I apologize if it comes off as such. I'm looking at actions and broadcasted intents, and the divergence between the two. I hoped to use that as a jumping point for my criticism of the over-use of historical “dream-world” figures.

Like I've said before, I immediately become skeptical of someone when they post a blog that's meant to sound loving, and they use the image of MLK, Gandhi, or a similar such figure to heighten the impact of that post. The comparison here is between “powerful symbolic figures,” and using them to energize one's work. In most cases, this is instinctive for many, many people. However, if that figure is being used out of context – or worse, if the context of their words and actions isn't understood – then it's essentially a perversion of the symbol, the figure, and their words and actions.

In other words: it's practically the reverse of what they did, and I don't just consider such things to be distasteful. I consider them to be manipulative, even if the person doing the action doesn't realize what they're doing. We've been trained to see “Good” things and turn off our critical filters, and so there are a number of individuals who know how to take advantage of this. One might compare it to the “Holy Bible Salesmen” that proliferated throughout the US during the 1950s, or to any good con-artist. If you can make someone stop thinking and convince them that you'd never betray them, then you can spin them any way you wish.

I'm simply disgusted when someone does it without realizing it, and I try to mostly leave it alone. When an occultist or witch does it, I consider the act inexcusable. We know what symbols have power. We know how people respond to that. We know better than to pass off hate as love. And what's more, we know better than to tell Tall Tales unless Tall Tales are called for. Or maybe I'm wrong.

In any event: the message wasn't supposed to be political. Nor religious. In this case, I had thought it'd help elucidate my concerns. But I think that in this case, it backfired and most of you felt I was discussing straight politics.

The Magickal Order of Vincent Price

During the confluence of the last Seventeen and a Half Internet-Aeons, the viziers of the HedKult have discovered that the final, and last Pure Transmission of Occulted Wisdom was – ironically enough – revealed through the films made by Hammer Pictures in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

As such it has been decided that the HedKult shall form as it's Outer Order the “Magickal Order of Vincent Price,” dedicated to the dissemination of this material so as to change the Course of History Itself!

You may join the Order for the paltry sum of $777 USD (no refunds; souls may be bartered in lieu of cold, hard cash) and be given access to the following Forbidden Secrets, Hidden Wisdom, and Useless Knowledge:

The Order's Manuscripts: Learn about the forth-coming neo-Pagan rapture in 2012, the Apocalyptic Tidings that Prove The End is Nigh, and that we're All Pretty Much Fucked. [Faust's Note: none of the manuscript material should be treated as Gospel Truth. Unfortunately, we all went quite mad years ago.]